'Homeland' Producer on Mirroring the Real World in the Season 6 Premiere
Homeland's sixth season has landed, and it returns the show to its homegrown roots in New York, set during a time that is very similar to America's own current situation. It may look to create a more personal environment for its audience, throwing the characters into a complex situation that is so relevant.
"After the election, our initial concern was could Homeland dramatize anything as scary as what’s going on in the real world, and we’ll just have to see whether it is scary or whether it’s business as usual,” said executive producer Alex Gansa. In an interview with Deadline, Gansa voiced a constant concern for just how much current events can push themselves to the fore of the show.
"Well, we always worry about current events getting in front of the show, and I think after the election we worried even more – wondering whether a female President was going to be too counterfactual to be relevant. As things have turned out with President-elect Trump’s difficulties with the intelligence community, the story we’re telling does feel a little bit more relevant than we thought it would at the time, so we’ll see, and we’ll see what happens." He addressed the fact that real world events well and truly caught up to the show's fifth season, which was set in Berlin.
"My God, the attack in Paris and Brussels caught up to the events that we were dramatizing. Last season we certainly weren’t saying every Muslim immigrant in Europe is a terrorist. That wasn’t the message, although some people interpreted that as the message."
On the series endgame, which previously Gansa has been vocal toward a season 8 conclusion, possibly in Israel, he stands by that sentiment. "I’m absolutely building the story toward a conclusion and, barring unforeseen world events, we do really hope to go abroad for the last two seasons and to end the story there. We also hope to get Carrie back into the intelligence agency business.
"She’s been out of it now for two seasons and I think it’s time that she goes back into the fold and then winds up doing her job overseas somewhere." For season 6, Gansa guarantees the reappearance of past characters, and some seeds being planted for the show's conclusion. Of course, that conclusion hasn't been thought up just yet. But it's early days in the series' final stretch, if a season 8 ending is to be believed.
Source: Deadline
